Dr Sarah Jenkins

Profile

Dr Sarah Jenkins is a cognitive psychologist, with an extensive experience of conducting high quality, applied research focusing on how people understand, communicate and make decisions concerning risk and uncertainty. She holds a joint post between the Centre for Decision Research and the Met Office, where she is applying social science techniques to deliver high impact decision research in areas related to weather and climate. She has also conducted judgement and decision-making research in collaboration with a range of public sector organisations, such as the: British Geological Survey, Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy; Office for Product Safety and Standards; Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL). Her current research projects focus on the communication of uncertainty in weather forecasts, the understanding of impact-based forecasts and the cultural evolution of risk perceptions.

Research interests

My research interests lie broadly in the field of judgement and decision-making. More specifically, my research focuses on the communication and understanding of risk and uncertainty information, across a range of domains, including natural hazards, product safety, food safety, law and medicine. Using a variety of social science methods, I am interested in exploring how such communications can be improved to guide decision-making.

Qualifications

• PhD Experimental Psychology - University College London
• MSc Social Cognition - University College London
• BSc Psychology - University of Reading

Professional memberships

• National Hazards Partnership Hazard Impact and Science Group
• UCL Warning Research Centre